From Dust to Dust
by Ceara Ivory
Summary: Voldemort is diagnosed with brain cancer and thus is forced to take a step back and examine his life thus far. What will he do now?
1. Prologue

From Dust to Dust

Written by Chibikan

Summary: After all that he had done to escape death, the Dark Lord finds out that he will soon die anyway. And his killer is not to be Dumbledore, or the Order of the Phoenix, or the Ministry, or even Harry Potter. His killer is silent, swift, and worst of all, unstoppable, at least in this case. His killer is, ironically, a brain tumor, large and malignant, situated on his brain stem, making it impossible to remove. What will he do now?

Author's Note: I have very little knowledge of how chemotherapy works. If someone who does know, could please email me that information, I would be most unappreciative. Thanks.

Prologue

"INCOMPETENT FOOLS!" Voldemort shouted at the top of his lungs. "I practically gift-wrapped those brats for you!" He had every right to be angry, of course. His men had failed him, again and miserably. The Potter boy had once again gotten the better of him, had utterly humiliated him in front of the minister and his lackeys. He'd lost the prophecy. And to make matter worse, he had a headache throbbing right behind his eyes, or at least it felt like it. "I entrusted you with a mission! A mission of great importance and you BUNGLED IT! Even you Bella! I never thought I'd see the day when you'd fail me so!"

Bellatrix daringly stepped forward, "M…my Lord, it wasn't a total failure. I managed to kill that blood traitor, Sirius Black."

Voldemort stepped forward, pitching ever so slightly, and jabbed his wand at her, "CRUCIO!!" he ignored her agonizing screams, "Against my direct orders! I wanted to turn Black and his werewolf to the Death Eaters! You disobeyed me, Bellatrix LeStrange!"

As he punished her, he fought the desire to clutch his head and rip it right off. The pain was getting worse. He was forced to release the curse a mere two minutes after casting. It was too debilitating for him. He opened his mouth to berate her further, but was hit with a sudden wave of dizziness. Absently, he reached over to grasp the sleeve of Wormtail's cloak (he was closest).

Wormtail looked over and was alarmed to see how much paler than normal the Dark Lord was. "Master, are you alright?"

He received no answer as the Dark Lord sank to his knees. Voldemort simply could not hold himself up any longer. Blast his pride, he thought, finally giving into the blessed darkness that unconsciousness provided him. He was then only vaguely aware of the cries of his followers and their footsteps racing to him.

Author's Notes: Well, what do you think so far? Do I have your attention?


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

Wormtail sat worried sick by his Master's bedside while Severus Snape (who had arrived a mere ten minutes before) did a limited evaluation using diagnostic spells. He could do little else as he had never been trained to do healer work. Only Wormtail was to stay with the Dark Lord, Snape had ordered, as too many people in the room of an ill person was never a good idea.

"Snape, what's wrong with him? Can't you tell anything?" Wormtail demanded with some urgency. "Is he going to be alright?"

Severus looked at Wormtail oddly. He could never figure out why Wormtail seemed to worship the murderous fiend so. But then, Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew, had never been very bright, even in his younger days. "I think he will be. I can find nothing out of the ordinary wrong with him." he stepped back, "He should wake up soon, perhaps, Wormtail, you should go and bring up a glass of water for him. He will need it when he comes to."

Wormtail proceeded out the door, just past Bella who had obviously been waiting, "Bellatrix, what are you doing out here?"

"I have to know what Severus said. Is the Master going to be alright?" she asked.

"Yes, Severus said he should be waking soon and I am going to get him a glass of water for when he does."

"WORMTAIL GET BACK IN HERE!" came an distressed cry from the bedroom.

Wormtail and Bella both raced back in. Wormtail nearly felt his heart leap into his throat when he saw what had Snape so riled up. The Dark Lord was convulsing, violently. "MASTER!" they both screamed in horror. They had never seen something like this unless it was caused by a cruciatus curse. This appeared to be caused by nothing.

"What's happening to him?" Wormtail asked.

Severus snapped, "It's called a seizure, you dunderhead! Now, help me get him into a recovery position! Before he hurts himself!"

Together, Wormtail and Snape managed to roll the Dark Lord over onto his side, this to prevent asphyxiation. And waited, trying to keep the Dark Lord from falling off the bed or hitting something. It seemed like hours before the convulsions finally ceased and they were finally able to let go of him.

He rolled onto his back and slowly opened his eyes, confusion and exhaustion dancing within the red orbs, "What happened to me?"

Wormtail answered, "You fell ill, Master. But don't worry, we're taking good care of you."

The Dark Lord was clearly not himself as he nodded simply, "Yes, thank you." he sniffed the air, "It smells like something is burning in here." he whispered before dropping off into a deep sleep.

Snape sniffed the air and looked around. Nothing was burning, which meant that the smell had been imagined. A phantom smell or odor. "I think we may need to take him to a muggle doctor, as loathed as I am to say it."

AN: My source for symptoms is . I am going by what I read there. If there's any other symptoms you might know of, please tell me. There will be several chapters of clues, doctor visits and tests before he is diagnosed. And right now, the war is not a top priority for any of them.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Doctor, Doctor

A few days later found the Dark Lord sitting on an examination table of a muggle doctor's office. He glared heartily at Bellatrix and Severus. The two of them had confiscated his wand while he was sleeping off his seizure the other day and hid it rather well. And then today, they had practically, no make that literally, dragged him kicking and screaming to this bloody place. It practically screamed filth. And not muggle filth, either, just general filth (note, he's exaggerating, it's actually remarkably clean, he's just afraid of doctors). They were still there to make sure he didn't make a break for it.

"Where is that blasted muggle filth!" Voldemort complained, "It's been nearly two hours."

Bella looked at the clock on the wall, "It's been ten minutes. Settle down, this is for your own good." Oh, how it easy it was to be confident now that he had no way of punishing her for it.

The door finally swung open to admit the doctor, "Good morning, Mr. Riddle, I am Dr. Fearing." The man held a clipboard in his hand, and a white coat accented teal pants. Tortoiseshell glasses rounded his brown eyes and only a shock of gray in his red hair suggested that he might be old enough to be a doctor. "It says here that the other day you passed out and, shortly before waking, experienced an epileptic seizure. Do you have a history of epilepsy by chance?" as he asked, he wrapped a band around his patient's upper arm and began squeezing a rubber ball attached to the band.

"No!" Voldemort snapped, "And I personally don't see why it was necessary to bring me here! It was a one time occurrence, I'm sure. I felt fine after and I feel perfectly fine now!" Okay, that was a lie. His head was splitting. But he'd be damned if he told that fool muggle healer that.

The doctor only gave him a knowing look, "Ahh, I see you're one of those who likes to do a self-diagnosis. Well, humor me anyway, let me know I'm earning my paycheck." he looked at the meter on the apparatus of the blood pressure device, "Hmmm, your blood pressure is very high. How is your stress level lately? Are you easily agitated?"

Severus coughed slightly, earning himself another glower which promised significant pain in the future.

"No, I am NOT easily agitated! And I have had enough of this nonsense!" Voldemort stepped off the table to leave but as soon as he put weight on it, he fell to the tile floor to the surprise of all present. All three of them rushed to help him up, "Get away from me! I do NOT need your help!" he shouted as he tried to stand back up. But each time he managed to get a hold on the floor, he simply fell again. He couldn't stand up, he realized with a terrible shock. Fine! If his body insisted on lying here like a log, he thought to himself, so be it.

Once again the doctor, Severus, and Bellatrix attempted to help him get up. This time, he didn't protest, although ashamed of his terrible vulnerability. "W…why can't…" he voiced trailed off as he seemed to stare into nothingness. His body began to convulse in the arms of Bellatrix.

"Bloody hell!" the doctor cursed, running for the office phone, "Marge, get an ambulance stat!"

He had stopped convulsing by time the ambulance arrived. But he was so weak, and confused, so confused. He never thought he would see the day that he would be at the mercy of worthless muggles. But as he looked into the worried eyes of his two followers, he found he didn't really care.

"W…what's wrong with me?" he asked.

Dr. Fearing spoke frantically into his cell phone, "Tell them to meet us at the ER and be ready to do both a CT Scan and an MRI upon arrival! I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR DAMN BREAK! DO IT OR I'LL HAVE YOUR JOBS!!" he shut the mobile phone with a satisfying slam. "Morons, the lot of them!"

Bellatrix gave her hand to the weak, yet surprised, Voldemort and whispered loud enough for only him to hear, "Don't worry Master, everything is going to be alright, we're going to find out what's wrong and fix it. You'll be better in no time."

He gripped her hand as tight as he could, not quite himself, "I'm frightened…"

AN: Another day, another chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. We're getting heated.

Chapter 3: Diagnosis and Prognosis


	4. Chapter 3

From Dust to Dust

Chapter 3

"Like bloody hell I'll be staying here overnight!" Voldemort tried to shout from his place in the hospital bed in Room 64.

Dr. Fearing gave his new patient a firm look. "Mr. Riddle, you are very ill."

"I am quite aware of that. You will tell me what the hell is wrong with me, fix it and then I will leave. Now."

"Mr. Riddle, you don't quite understand I see. The tests we had to give you will take days to decipher, perhaps up to a week. You need to be here, where we professionals can keep a close eye on you. Your son and daughter have already signed the needed forms to keep you here."

"My son and daughter?" Voldemort asked before realizing he was talking about Severus and Bellatrix. Of course, he was old enough to be their father, heck, their grandfather. How dare they sign such forms without checking with him first. How dare they masquerade as his children. How dare they even bring him here to this horrible muggle place. "Never mind. I don't care about forms, I will not stay here." His protests were punctuated with several uncontrollable yawns. He felt so weak, like an overcooked noodle and all he wanted to do was sleep. But he didn't want to do it here.

Dr. Fearing simply smiled kindly. "Looks like the medicine is finally starting to work," he indicated an IV pole with a bag dripping fluid down a tube that was inserted in Voldemort's arm. "Mr. Riddle, you'll do well just to relax yourself. You're only making yourself worse by trying to argue with me. I am your doctor now, and I will decide how to best to take care of you. Rest assured Mr. Riddle, you have nothing to worry about. I will find out what is wrong and we'll go from there. Just sleep."

Voldemort found himself even too weak to speak anymore as his eyelids slowly slid closed. The muggle had won this battle. But, he told himself as darkness claimed him, when he woke up again, he was getting out of there.

Over the next six days Voldemort told himself that same thing whenever the nurses came in to change the IV bag or bring him the hospital's idea of food. Many of his followers came to visit him, much to his surprise. Wormtail was his most frequent visitor. Often the pudgy man would bring de-magicked Daily Prophets and read the articles (for much to Voldemort's embarrassment, he was even too weak to hold a stupid paper) aloud to him.

It made him wonder why. Why would they come to see him? They couldn't possibly be concerned about him, not really. He was under no delusions, he knew that the only reason they had joined him was because he had promised them power when they conquered the Wizarding World. Surely they must truly hate him. He was in no way a kind master to them. In fact he was cruel, and he knew that. So why were they taking time out of their busy lives to visit him?

When he wasn't pondering the actions of his Death Eaters, listening to Wormtail read the newspaper to him, or sleeping, he found a new hobby, something he could do without moving a muscle. Television. Alright, so it was a muggle past time, he just didn't have the energy for anything else. All of his energy was being stolen by the seizures that had been hitting at least once a day now and the medicine in his veins. So, television was there to keep him from going any more spare than he already was. He especially enjoyed soap operas, although he would never, ever tell anyone.

Finally, on the sixth day, when Dr. Fearing made his daily checkup…

"Mr. Riddle, this is Dr. Maureen Hail, she's an oncologist, a cancer specialist. We finally have the results of your tests." In actuality, he'd had them since two days prior, but he had wanted to wait for Hail to arrive to tell the man. It was days like this that made him wish he had chosen to be a lawyer instead.

"Cancer?" Voldemort groaned out weakly. He knew what cancer was of course, he wasn't an idiot, but why bring a cancer specialist to see him? "Is that what's wrong with me?" he asked, fearing the answer.

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Riddle." Dr. Hail replied, her muted-green eyes showing sadness. "It's a very rare situation. According to your test results, you have a rather large mass located right on your brainstem. It was probably growing there for years, possibly since your childhood and you never even knew it. Normally we would just perform an operation to remove the tumor and then several months of chemo would set you back to rights."

"Then let's do that." Voldemort interrupted. "I am tired of being in this horrid place. Do the operation and get me the hell out of here."

"Mr. Riddle, she said normally," Dr. Fearing replied. "The tumor is ON your brainstem, not around it or near it. It's literally planted on your brainstem. There's no way to remove it."

"Then what about this chemo-thing?" The doctor couldn't possibly be saying what he thought he was saying. It was impossible.

Dr. Hail sighed, "Mr. Riddle, it's just too massive. Chemotherapy would not be able to destroy it in time. Make it more manageable yes, but not destroy it."

Voldemort looked straight ahead. "Doctors, stop beating around the bush. Just tell me flat out. What does all this clap-trap mean? For me?"

Dr. Fearing took a seat in the chair beside the bed. "Sadly, Mr. Riddle. There is nothing any of us can do. You're dying."

AN: Finally Chapter 3 after over six months of waiting. Finally the plotline is laid out completely, black and white. What will Voldemort do now that he knows that he is dying, despite his best efforts at immortality? How will others react when they find out?


End file.
